Title: A Royal Affair
Author: V.E. Schwab
Series: Shades of Magic #0.5
In: A Universe of Wishes (Dhonielle Clayton)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Magic, Medieval fantasy, Young adult
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2020

I’ve heard heaps about the Shades of Magic series, and it’s even been on my wishlist for a while. But I just haven’t gotten around to actually digging into it. Which, of course, made this a great short story and teaser to make me want to dig into this series, and author (since I’ve never read anything by Schwab before). A Darker Shade of Magic is definitely another book that is now sitting on top of my TBR.

Even though you know that there isn’t going to be a happy ending at the end of this story – there’s just a not-happy tone to the whole tale, it’s still a great read. And honestly, the ending was actually a whole lot sadder than what I was anticipating. It also made me ridiculously mad at Alucard’s family. I mean, wow, I’ve read some horrible families. But I think that this one actually took the cake. It physically hurt my heart in some moments to read about how horrifyingly they treat their own kin.

Although it was Alucard that I really felt the connection to (because it’s all told from his point of view), Rhy was still an intriguing and wonderful character. I honestly can’t get the image of gold dust out of my mind, even a day or so after reading this story. There is something about him and the naïve hope that was about that makes me want to find out that this couple gets a good ending…

Image source: Goodreads